Welcome to the NEW Leavenworth Street!

Hey thanks for visiting to the NEW address for Leavenworth Street – the talk of Nebraska politics.

Of course, the first thing you may notice is that the new L. St. looks a lot like the old L. St. from Blogger. Well, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and all that.

But our new site at our new address is now using WordPress, and that gives us a few more whistles and bells to play with.

So just keep in mind as you return you may see some subtle (not Suttle) changes here and there. Columns may widen or add or subtract. Items may move around. And certain formatting effects for posts and comments may not have all the kinks worked out of them. Please be patient.

A few things to know: We have transferred ALL of the old posts and comments of the past five years from the old address to the new address. You should still be able to comment on the old posts (though we are not 100% on that). There may be a few issues about importing some old comments on the more recent posts, and we will try to address that as we move. But the old site will have comments shut off, so don’t bother going there for anything new.

There are some issues about the number of posts that appear on the main page, and we are still sorting that out. We would like to make it like the old one, with about ten full posts appearing. Right now it is not working that way, so you can tough through that.

The new site here will also have a few more ads — regular paid ads as well as the Google Adsense banners. If you would like to advertise here, please drop us a line and we will forward you the pertinent info. We hope to make this grow as time goes on.

You will also find that we are selling shirts and mugs and stuff via Zazzle, over in the right hand column. We hope to have more designs and items as we go along. (Buy some for the Festivus Holidays!)

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Rarely do we find that we like changes from an old site to a new one. It is just the way it is. However, we hope that you will find these to be pretty minor, and the new site to work like it always has, and maybe a little better.

Our goal is to continue to talk about Nebraska politics and more, and for you to keep reading and talking yourselves. In any case, please let us know what you think of the new format, and any suggestions you may have.

And if you would, suggest our site to a friend who likes politics. The more involved the merrier.

And, as always, thanks for reading.

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And just to have ONE political item in this brand spankin’ new site, how about Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle’s response to Election Commissioner Dave Phipps regarding his refusal to resign in the face of the collected signatures.

Suttle wrote:

I will not resign and if there is an election I fully expect Omahans will reject this recall attempt.

A recall is a serious action against any public official. It is the public’s right to prevent egregious or criminal acts by an office holder. I have done neither.

Now.

All we have heard from the Mayor and his peoples since the beginning of the recall is how the petitioners made false statements, lied about how the recall works and generally didn’t follow the law.

And yet…here is the Mayor of the City completely misrepresenting what the actual law is.

Suttle has deliberately mislead voters about what the Nebraska Revised Statute says. There is nothing in the statute about “egregious or criminal acts” by an office holder. That is an interesting standard — and one that would be unlikely to pass through the legislature — what exactly is an “egregious” act?

But that is NOT the law. Here is the law.

Nebraska Revised Statute 32-1302. Officials subject to recall.
(1) Except for trustees of sanitary and improvement districts, any elected official of a political subdivision and any elected member of the governing bodies of cities, villages, counties, irrigation districts, natural resources districts, public power districts, school districts, community college areas, educational service units, hospital districts, and metropolitan utilities districts may be removed from office by recall pursuant to sections 32-1301 to 32-1309.

(emphasis added)

The rest of the applicable sections talk only about the various procedures. There is nothing about egregious behavior or criminal acts.
So what is Suttle talking about?

Hleavenworthst.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/sites/7/e is arguing what he would like the standard to be. And that is fine — if it is couched in those terms.

But he did not couch it in those terms, in what was a relatively official document.

So is this any different than what those standing around the petitioners said — if what they said was untrue? Well, yes this is different.

Nice upgrade! Getting a lot of corporate contributions? 🙂 Will the links policy change on the new site?

As for the mayor’s remarks, yes you’re completely right in pointing out the letter of the law in the statute. However, my personal opinion is that the recall folks are overreacting. The streets are more or less paved, the police and fire departments are on duty, and I actually visited two restaurants within the city limits that were quite busy! Add the fact that he hasn’t tried to build an arena (Thanks Hal) or a stadium (Thanks Mike) or a trolley. I think he should fill out his term.
I’d also like to point out that the City Council vote for the budget was 6-1. None of the council members were targeted by the recall commission. It the budget and and the taxes are the reason for the recall, then everybody involved should have been on the petition. That’s as incompetent as anything Suttle has done, and I won’t vote for incompetence.

Finally, there’s been a lot of talk about a list of proposed list of state budget cuts. Is that document publicly available anywhere?

No the links policy is the same.
As a matter of fact, I think I can now prevent them, generally.

I will eventually put that up in the header, but it comes down to this: I don’t want to have to police and click on every link to make sure someone isn’t linking to goat sacrifices, or whatever. And I also don’t want this to become a place for someone to pimp their own site.

So it’s simply easier for me to ban them all. If you really need someone to see something you can either make a specific request to my email address, or simply describe it and let people use the Google machine.

And as I’ve said, this site is a work in progress, so if have any suggestions, or see a technical problem, please let me know.

Congrats on the move, Sweeper. I moved to WP a year or two ago and have never been sorry – much more robust blogging environment.

With your new efforts at promo (T-shirts, bumper stickers, etc), I predict your up-till-now successful efforts at preserving your anonymity will likely come under SERIOUS new pressures. Good luck with that – it will be interesting to watch. Kinda adds yet another dynamic to your “mystique”. Watching L-Street over the last few years has been a real object lesson in how to successfully grow a blog, and I applaud you and your staff (if you have one).

Thanks UW.
Wordpress is still a little tricky, so it will be a while before this site is settled.

As far as the shirts and all that, I just figured it could be a way to make some loose change, and have something interesting/funny up. And the “I am Street Sweeper” stuff isn’t meant to thumb my nose at anyone. I thought of it as the “I am Spartacus!” type declaration.

And frankly I still don’t get certain people’s obsession with “who is Street Sweeper”. This site has been up for going on five years now. What exactly would be the gain of knowing a name?

Anywho, enjoy and please let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions on layout, etc. I’m considering them all.

Does the new format allow for the same type of anonymity as the old blog? Or does the move allow you to trace the origin of posts to specific IP addresses? I’m not planning anything offensive or inappropriate, but it’d be nice to know…

LB,
Wordpress does give the IP address of each commenter in my admin site (though I’m certainly not giving that out). But there is no way to track IP addresses to individuals, so it doesn’t really make any difference.

PS,
When I used Google Chrome, it underlines misspelled in squiggly red. If people can’t handle the rest on their own, their TV typewriters can only do so much.

Congratulations on the new location/website Sweeper. What was revealing in Mayor Moron’s response to the election commission was his priority listing of what/who into which he places his faith. Pretty amazing he trusts the judicial system more than the voters. He’s going to be doubly disappointed very soon…LOL!!!

Sweeper — Are you sure you’re the same Sweeper who started the original site? The posts seem to ramble more nowadays, there are more grammatical slips, and there seems to be much less “insider” news than there used to be.

Looks like some bad weather will be moving into the LWS area. How will this impact last minute shopping and therefor tax receipts and the subsequent new TAX Suttle will try to impose to make up for lost revenue?

11:13,
Tell ya what. You sit next to Jen Rae Hein and I will personally send you an email (or G-txt).
And you can then see whether or not Jen’s hands move.
Why don’t you ask the Bold people if they still think Jen is me.
(Oh and Outer, are you sure Foley shouldn’t be auditing CITY govt time?)
-SS

IP addresses are funny things, especially when they are in the hands of those who know how read the right kind of maps and have authority to subpoena records. Of course there needs to be a valid cause etc. This will be enough to protect for a while…….but wait the FCC just ruled today to “control” the internet Gore built!

Could this mean they will require stricter user identification protocols to enhance law enforcement efforts? The uniform will most likely have a brown shirt. But of course it is all done in the interest of some good cause. Just unfortunate that the people will need to surrender a little more freedom. Not to mention there will be some in the Politburo who will be exempted from the new rules. Where did this, or should I say when, did this already happen?

Watch out ya’ll. Won’t be long till they find you a threat to their rule.

Although I think this blog as well as Tom Becka are the best sources for Suttle related issues, does anyone know what happend to the blog Suttle Watch? It was idol for months, then came back in August for one entry. It had good info while it lasted.

So if they eliminate the term limits, can Ernie run again? God bless the brave souls that have the courage to skip the morning prayer. Ernie’s courage is a gift from Jesus that would truly be welcome back to the floor. I’ll say two Hail Mary’s tonight if this is the case.

Having watched the Chambers Carnival Show for years, it was not only refreshing, but a significant, positive change to have him out. Nebraska is MUCH better off with what was accomplished in the last couple of years without his one-sided, totally parochial babbling. Unfortunately he can run again, but for the sake of Nebraska, I hope Brenda Council continues. At least she is open minded and shows SOME reason in her positions.

Thith recall ith truly an awful ordeal to be impothed on thuch a fine man ath Mayor Jim Thuttle. I have been through theethe kind of court battles and believe me it ith no fun. Much leth fun than getting an abdominal matthage from a total thtranger!